![This is a cultured motor neuron (red) with a bunch of astrocytes (green) that appeared on the cover of PNAS in 2007. Astrocytes are star-shaped (as you may have guessed from the name) glial cells. Glial cells are the support cells of the brain, and their function isn’t completely understood yet- they may be even more important than the support cell idea gives them credit for. Glial cells maintain homeostasis, form myelin (this is not astrocytes that make up myelin- different glial cells do that), and may even have a critical role in major depression. This role is still under investigation (I’ll talk about what scientists think they might do in a later post because it’s very interesting), but it leads to the critical investigation of what exactly do these glial cells do and how we can understand them better.
[Image Source]](http://28.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_l6dlih1x0N1qb6etto1_500.gif)
This is a cultured motor neuron (red) with a bunch of astrocytes (green) that appeared on the cover of PNAS in 2007. Astrocytes are star-shaped (as you may have guessed from the name) glial cells. Glial cells are the support cells of the brain, and their function isn’t completely understood yet- they may be even more important than the support cell idea gives them credit for. Glial cells maintain homeostasis, form myelin (this is not astrocytes that make up myelin- different glial cells do that), and may even have a critical role in major depression. This role is still under investigation (I’ll talk about what scientists think they might do in a later post because it’s very interesting), but it leads to the critical investigation of what exactly do these glial cells do and how we can understand them better.
[Image Source]
